I am not sure if anyone has heard of this, but there is a brewery that is making these new dissolvable and edible six pack rings. They are, as opposed to regular plastic ones, supposed to be safe for fish and birds to consume. This makes it so that when people dispose of them, and these get dumped into the sea, animals that are usually prone to try to consume the rings will be able to eat them. Unless of course if the rings don’t dissolve first.

I suppose that one might approach this and call it a step in the right direction, it is amazing that people are becoming aware of the harms dumping trash into the ocean imposes on sea life. It’s also a great thing that people are trying to come up with seemingly less harmful ways to dispose of our garbage. But why can’t we just not throw our trash into the ocean? A part of me believes that something like this invention could continue to perpetuate ideas that throwing our garbage into the ocean is an ok thing to do. Also, who’s to say that, even though these are made to be edible, they would pass through digestive systems of fish? It certainly is nice to see that this company is taking ocean life into consideration, but if other companies begin to follow in their footsteps, I feel as though there’s going to need to be a lot of research going into this. Which, great, anything to stop polluting the waters.

Or, we could just stop throwing our trash into the oceans all together.